Last April I did a photoshoot with a dancer There was one more photographer with us who helped with recording a short video clip for me.

It was such a beautiful day and I really enjoyed this photoshoot. As I keep mentioning and as you can see from my galleries – I enjoy shooting many different photography genres. This can get a bit overwhelming sometimes.

For a long time I have been considering narrowing down my fields of work but it always felt so difficult – I couldn’t pick because I wasn’t sure whether I would be making the right choice.

Also it always seemed that if I pick just few genres that means that I will be giving up on the rest and I wasn’t ready to do that.

Then I started asking myself – what genre of photography I couldn’t go without. I know that I really like fashion photography – after all, my love of fashion and style is what got me into photography in the first place.

I also really like portraiture.

But being a hobbyist dancer I have to say that the one genre that I couldn’t go without is – dance photography. This is the type of photography that inspires me the most and charges me with great energy

Around the time of that photoshoot I decided that I am going to do everything in my power to focus on dance photography as much as I can

So here is the short behind the scene video and below are some of my favorite shots.

During the years I came across many photographers… Some were nice, polite and easy to get along with, while others – not so much.

In this post I want to talk about a very recent experience that I had with the type of Photographer that I call “The Football Player”.

Why ?

Because his main concern seemed to be – pushing me out of the way when I wasn’t even in his way, instead of adjusting himself to the environment and focusing on doing his job better.

I was hired to do a Bar Mitzva. It was a beautiful venue – I honestly fell in love with the decorations

I have photographed other events for the same family so I was familiar with most of the guests and workers there. This time however there was another addition to the photographer’s team.

It was one photographer that I am familiar with since I’ve met him at several other local events. I din’t know much about him apart from the fact that he looks exactly like the stereotypical photographer – old dude with huge gut, bulky camera, telephoto lens, speedlite and a microphone ( why on earth did he need all of that, attached at all times for this event was beyond me )

I also remember that on few occasions he took a photo of me, promised to send me the photo but never did… even though I asked several times.

I said ‘Hello’ and was chatting nicely with everyone and we were checking each other’s gear, they asked me what I’m using so I said that I am using my usual DSLR and I also started brought a mirrorless camera.

The rugby player immediately started hating on mirrrorless camera’s – he was saying that they are not professional and they are pointless and so on… I don’t like people that are sooo stuck in the past and unwilling to give something new a chance but I didn’t argue with him…

It turned out that he brought his brother along… so now it’s four photographers – which is way too many, yes the venue was big but… come on – four…

At the beginning we were all in the entrance room waiting for the guests to arrive and for all the preparations to be done.

I was doing my usual – taking wide and tight shots, trying to capture as much as I can. At some point I heard the photographer in question say to me – “Please make sure that you stay out of my frame and don’t block my shot”…

Now the place wasn’t tiny – there was plenty of space for me and for him and for everyone else to wonder about freely and I never stood in front of him so him saying that was very odd. Also it’s not like he is stuck to the ground and cannot move a little bit to get the shot he wants.

When I am photographing an event – I move, I find spaces in between people, I go under, over and around the things that I don’t want to include in my frame.

I didn’t respond to him the first time he said that. Later on he placed himself deliberately right in front of me exactly when I was about to take my shot. I decided to ignore that too and moved so I can still get my shot.

Sadly this sort of behavior kept repeating, a lot. At one point I was getting ready to take a shot and then I heard him speaking from somewhere behind me saying “I believe I asked you not to block my shot” and then he just pushed me, aggressively to the side.

I couldn’t have known that he placed himself right behind me – he wasn’t there before and I have no eyes at the back of my head… also it is not my responsibility to always look around and check where he is right before I take a shot.

He also sent his brother to talk to me a lot – as if his attitude wasn’t distracting enough. The whole idea was to interfere and not let me do my work, he had to take all the photos.

I had a busy busy week leading up to this event and I was not feeling great so dealing with that situation was too much for me.

I didn’t wanted to make a fuss about this – it was such a happy event, so I just told the people that hired me that I am not feeling well and I must go home.

I did tell them what happened the next day but I don’t think they cared much about it… and I get it from their point of view, they just wanted more photographers to cover more angles, which shouldn’t have been so difficult.

To be honest I don’t understand why the football player tried so hard to get me out of the way – there was no reason to be competing, especially with nasty tricks like that – we were all there hired for the same job.

I thought about the situation afterwards… asking myself whether I did the right thing, maybe I should have stayed and protected my job better… or even tried some of the same tactics on him… but that’s just not who I am…

All I can hope for is that he didn’t steal the next event for me, cos what the client saw is him staying and me leaving… they probably won’t bother to see anything beyond that and I wouldn’t blame them.

Share your thoughts in comments – have you been in a similar situation ? What would you do, or what did you do ?

It was definitely something that took me a bit out of my comfort zone because I am not exactly a social photographer.

The walk was very nice and the best part is that the photograph that I submitted was chosen as the winning image for the Sofia Photowalk. I captured a lovely girl jumping in the air, next to a fountain.

This is the second photoshoot I did using my Youngnuo Flash with my Canon 600D and my second camera was Sony A58 with a telephoto lens. One of the main reasons I get this flash was to try the High Speed Sync function aka overpowering the sun light. The best place to battle with the sun light is Israel. The HHS gives you the ability to freeze motion and I love doing that with water splashes. I am happy with the flash because it is a great affordable choice with lots of capabilities.

I have discussed this topic so many times with other photographers and even models sometimes – how some poses, angles and different ways of presenting an object or scenery are a lot more aesthetically pleasing than others…

The thing is – the opinions will vary and you will find that people’s understanding and views are very different.

I like to think that there are general things that most people can agree on when it comes to aesthetics in Photography.

I like to call them aesthetic guidelines – because they are not exactly rules that you must follow like crazy, they are recommendations, some people will find them practical while others may just disregard them.

I wanted to include enough information on that topic so I am sharing things that I learned trough my experience along with information that I gathered online.

Here are the main things to consider if you want to create more aesthetically pleasing images:

• Center of Interest

Simply put – your focal point. Most digital cameras can only focus on one particular and rather small area or the frame, so your center of interest is going to be one. This should be the primary subject in your photo – the thing that you want the viewers to notice first.

• Points of Interest

A point of interest is a point that attracts attention. While the center of interest is one, the points of interest can me more. Multiple points of interest are said to increase the aesthetic value of a photograph.

• Circles

I was taking a course in which the lecturer insisted that eyes are drawn to circles so images containing a full circles are more aesthetically pleasing to the viewer.

• Triangles

Same can be said about triangles. Many of the popular poses in portrait photography are based on creating triangular shapes.

• Symmetry

We all know that more symmetrical faces are generally perceived as more beautiful. I love symmetry in Photography – I always try to present my scene in a symmetrical way but not to the point where it looks like I have mirrored the image – I am not against mirroring as long as it’s not overdone.

• The Rule of Odds

• Composition

Your composition is everything that you choose to include in the frame. Even though nowadays the composition can be altered in post processing, it is best to be aware of what you want to capture while taking the shot.

Those are the main ideas on how to guide the viewers attention and there are many ways to incorporate them into your work.

I want to add some things that I would advise anyone to avoid – if they want to create a good looking photograph :

Dutch angles – crooked horizon

Perspective distortion

Low angle portraits

Nude or provocative shots that make the subject look cheap

There are a lot more things but those are the ones I really cannot stand…

In order to capture your subject in the most flattering way it’s also important to understand Lens Distortion & Lighting Patterns.

I want to add that I don’t stop my work, or take a break just to think a bout aesthetic guidelines.

Since I learned them I am able to apply the ones I choose without even thinking bout it.

It’s a lot more important to be familiar with the concepts, than to follow them entirely of fixate on them all the time.

What I go by is what looks good to me – I just listen to my own sense of taste

]]>https://esteewhitephotos.com/aesthetics-in-photography/feed/01023“Clicking” is not slang for Photographing – those two words mean different things.https://esteewhitephotos.com/clicking-is-not-slang-for-photographing/
https://esteewhitephotos.com/clicking-is-not-slang-for-photographing/#respondThu, 10 May 2018 15:48:58 +0000https://esteewhitephotos.com/?p=1018

I really dislike it when people call photographing “clicking” or refer to a photograph as a – “click”… “Oh what a nice click you got over there”…

A click is one short movement that you do with your mouse usually… I can understand if people mean it in the sense of – pressing the shutter button… but it limits the action only to that…

English is not my native language so get it if people use that word just because they don’t exactly understand the difference in meaning. It is possible also that I am getting it wrong… but that is what it means to me when I read it.

A photograph ( to me ) typically is the capture of a well thought of, carefully composed and sometimes adjusted object or scenery… So calling it a click – really devalues all the efforts that went into creating this photograph.

It’s one thing to call it a photo, an image, a shot – that’s all fine…
but why on earth would you want to call it a click ???

Unless your understanding of photography is that… and you think that this is all that photographers do… Even if you are using your phone – then it would be called a “tap”or a “knock”…

Maybe people are trying to replace the word ‘shot’ with – ‘click’…
because it sounds less violent or something.

I donno… All I want to say is that – I don’t get it and I don’t like it.

Last night me and my husband had a talk about art and how an artist doesn’t need to compare his work to the work of other artists. My art is my photography so of course I was relating everything to it… I was saying that – comparing your work to the work of better photographers in theory helps you achieve a higher level – helps you grow & improve. My husband was saying that it isn’t necessary – you can still grow as an artist and keep getting better without comparing your work to other people’s work but just by comparing your current work to your earlier work. This reminded me of something that I read once about children – how it’s not wise to compare child’s achievements & progress to other children but rather just to their own previous achievements.

All of this makes total sense to me… except that photography is different… or at least I see things differently when it comes to it. Photography for me has two sides – the main is the artistic side – when you just create what you want and what you love… but there is also the commercial side – when you work with clients.

Now when you work with clients there is a level of expectation that you typically have to meet.

It is much easier not to compare your work to others when you are working on a personal project cos in that case it really doesn’t matter what others do and think and if they do it better or not – because nothing else matters but your own satisfaction

The whole comparing part starts as soon as you share your work with others. I am guilty of paying too much attention to what happens on social media. How my work is received… How something that seems like a great photograph to me – because it is something that I put a lot of effort in during the creative process – is very often not noticed by others at all…

At the same time photos that by my definition are just a ‘click’ of exactly what was in front of you or something just way simpler to do, many times seem to be way more appreciated by others – they get noticed a lot more, get more likes, positive comments etc. Also things that I absolutely avoid such as dutch angles, wrong white balance (overall color filter sort of look), perspective distortion – other people seem to really like those things…

Again when I do my personal projects I do them for myself and during the creation I get very devoted and I don’t think of anything else aside from the results that I want to achieve

At a later stage when I share my work online and I see that there is little or no positive reaction to it – this is when all the thinking and comparison starts happening…

And even if I stop comparing my work to other photographer’s work, others will still do it for me… in efforts to prove why my work is not good enough…

Then this brings another question to mind – should my work be adjusted and in a way simplified in order to be better received by the general audience ?

After making this post I have a better understanding of the fact that – yes this way of thinking doesn’t help my creativity… it doesn’t distract me but takes away time that could be better used… I know – it all has a lot to do with recognition… and even though it is not essential – it would be nice to get it more often than not : )

My conclusion is that it is ok to be aware of and inspired by other people’s work but it should be stopped at that – not continuing to the comparison part in such way because is not necessary… What is most important is to just do your thing Even if it ends up being something that is way different and often misunderstood or neglected by others – it doesn’t matter as long as you are satisfied with your progress and results

Yesterday I read an article about photographing frozen flowers
and this has been something I wanted to try for a very long while

So I went to the flower market and I got some flowers – I didn’t use all of them, most are on my balcony and I am looking after them.

They had to be tiny flowers so they can fit in my ice-cube tray. I knew that any bigger blocks of ice will take forever to freeze cos my freezer is not that powerful.

I carefully selected the flowers that I like best and then arranged them

in the tray

They were in the freezer by half 11 in the morning so in the afternoon around 6 pm I was very excited to check on them and see how they are doing.

They looked exactly the same – not frozen at all So left them overnight…

I went to bed still full of ideas and started thinking about the background… I wanted something in black and white with a clear division between the two… Luckily I had furniture that worked great for that

This morning I took the photos and I had to do it fast cos the ice cubes were melting quickly

Four of the photos turned out good enough to share on my website.

You can see them in the slideshow bellow – starting with my favorite one : )

The first photoshoot I did after getting the Yungnuo Flash for Canon. I had some sunset flash photography Ideas that I wanted to try and the beach was the perfect place. We went to obe of my favorite locations in Netanya and apparently it is quite a popular one because there was another photographer there shooting with another model. I was using my Canon 600D with the flash and Sony A58 with a telephoto lens to take the photos. For the video I used my Samsung NX mini. I had it set up on a very unstable tripod and with the wind blowing the camera didn’t stand much chance. It fell a couple of times right into the wet sand The lens suffered some severe damage.

This is me trying to salvage the lens… it was not successful…

Thankfully I had one more camera, of the same model, at home so I was able to replace it right away.

I have done quite a lot of event photography. Of course with events there is always a certain amount of unpredictability… people can always surprise you…

Usually I do the photography by myself and if I have a friend with me it’s mostly to keep me company. Events usually take several hours so inevitably I have to go to the bathroom… One time I decided to leave my camera on the table and just asked my friend to keep an eye on it. All the people at the event were from a small local community so I sort of knew them and I felt like this should be an ok thing to do… Well of course – I was wrong…

As I was walking back into the event room I saw how someone is just about to pick up my camera and try to use it !!! I rushed and grabbed my camera back… and I probably gave him a nasty look too… It wasn’t his fault though – there were two ladies asking him to do that… Apparently they couldn’t wait those 2 minutes till I’m back…

I am so so glad that I came back on time

What annoys me about situations like this is that some people really think that photography is that simple – you just pick up some camera, any camera and you are ready to go… I really wanted to tell them – Guys professional photography cameras are not like your mobile phones ! They do not work the same way ! Professional photography is not just pressing a button ! The sad reality is that many people are just never going to get that…

Also let’s not forget the fact that this is an item that belongs to someone else! The funny thing is – if it was my phone they probably wouldn’t have done the same thing… Because phones are private items right… Well most photographers feel more attached to their cameras rather than their phones – at least that is the case with me… I thought that it goes without saying how important a camera is to a photographer and so it shouldn’t be too difficult to respect that…
Well as I said – people can always surprise you… and do random things…

Oh yeah and my friend – she saw what was happening but she didn’t think of stopping them because she didn’t think it was a big deal…

Even though a camera left on the table should never be interpreted as an invitation to just go ahead and grab it… I haven’t left my equipment away ever since and I seriously started rethinking who to bring with me when photographing events